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Pharmaceutical managed care professional, consultant to Wall Street, SME, public speaker, biomedical ethicist. Big Pharma, Major Payer, PBM, and Biotech experience; chronic pain sufferer, and PTSD survivor. Advocate for appropriate and compassionate care for chronic pain sufferers no matter what a person's situation may be. Passionate about patient access to medicine and appropriate/timely health care for every man, woman, and child. Committed to the prevention of suicide, interested in finding ways to bring drugs to market safely and more efficiently as well as committed to care that treats the entire patient - physical, mental and spiritual = the human condition. Deep connection with God and all of the gifts he's provided; special place in my heart for animals and children. Strong belief that while developing employees you expose their greatness as well as your own! Fascinated by the changing healthcare environment every day!

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You are here:Home»The “Unsung Heroes” of Healthcare; From Excess to Care

The “Unsung Heroes” of Healthcare; From Excess to Care

Have you ever wondered what happens to all of the unused and disposable products that hospitals have like cotton balls, gauze, tubing, plastic suction bottles, surgical packs, etc. – do they just throw them away? Probably, but what a huge waste and according to Healthcare Without Harm, “U.S. hospitals generate more than two million tons of medical waste each year; much of that waste is unused medical supplies and equipment.”

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization estimates that “more than 10 million children under the age of five die in the developing world due to inadequate medical care.”

That’s an outrage, you might say… But someone is doing something about all the waste and there are several somebody’s; organizations like medshare.org, doc2dock.org, globallinks.org, and projectcure.org.

According to MedShare’s website, annually it:

Collects more than $93 million worth of life-saving medical supplies and equipment

Saves in excess of 2 million cubic feet from ending up in area landfill sites

Receives medical products from hundreds of hospitals and corporations

Collects over 15,000 pieces of equipment

But there’s plenty of room for growth across the U.S. Healthcare landscape: “Only a small percentage of hospitals have an organized way to deal with surplus equipment and supplies and donating surplus goods is intrinsically attractive to hospitals because it serves the added value of reducing the carbon footprint each hospital leaves behind.”

Surprisingly, hospitals aren’t the only ones who donate. MedShare gets 65 percent of its cargo from manufacturers or distributors of medical equipment and supplies, but a small puncture in a carton may mean that a box can’t be shipped to a paying customer even if the supplies are still individually wrapped and sterile. So a donation can come from just about any industry – it just takes some awareness and a little extra help to get needed cargo from A to B, and finally on to C.

For example, surplus supply groups like MedShare or Doc2Dock may collect donations at central warehouses, where volunteers — sometimes groups filled with primarily high school students — sort, pack and prepare supplies for their final destinations. The donations may be bar coded, packed, and stored until they are ready to be shipped. Doc2Dock has only a small warehouse in New York, but Wal-Mart lends a helping hand by picking up the cost of shipping the rest to Doc2Dock’s warehouses in Tennessee.

In the Doc2Dock example, the supplies and equipment are packed in a 40-foot container. A typical container from Doc2Dock would carry “12 hospital beds, two delivery tables, an operating room table, an anesthesia machine, and 800 boxes of supplies such as syringes, IV fluids and lines, gauze and gloves.” Sonogram machines for prenatal care are a frequent request, as are anesthesia units.

It’s amazing to know all of this love and care is going on behind the scenes!!

By simultaneously saving lives and making the world a better place these organizations and their volunteers reaffirm my belief that there are truly unsung heroes left in the world – thank God for them!!

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